Those who think that the government can stimulate the economy are forgetting something: the the government has to get the money from somewhere. It either has to tax or borrow to get it. Tax means “take from the private sector” and borrow means “borrow from the private sector” or from abroad.
In any case, these are funds that would otherwise have been available to the private sector. So nothing is gained by having the government confiscate or otherwise suck up the resources and spread them around. Government intervention is a zero-sum game.
When the private sector invests, it is to produce a profit. Profit means that society as a whole has decided what goods and services it wants, and rewards the most efficient producers.
When the government “stimulates”, it merely picks the winners and losers. The winners are those that get the pork. The losers are those that don’t. Nothing about what society wants, or who is efficient. By definition, these pork-barrel “earmarks” are for such important projects as studying the effective of marijuana on chimpanzees. We have all heard of the laughable if not so “cry-able” waste.
Real stimulus would be to empower the entrepreneurial spirit of American small business. How do you do this? By writing checks to the “winners?” No, simply get out of the way: reduce taxes of all kinds, reduce regulations of all kinds, and all intrusions into the marketplace.
That approach is what made America great.